Eugene Celadon Van Cooten

Eugene C. Van Cooten (1820-1851) was a Dutch surgeon and missionary. He worked at Islington College, a part of the Church Missionary Society College, Islington in London and traveled to the Badagry mission in Nigeria in March 1850. He was among the first missionaries to work at the Yoruba mission in Badagry within the Church Missionary Society. He served from 1850 to 1851.

Early life Van Cooten was born in 1820 to physician John Christopher Mathew Van Cooten and merchant's daughter Martha Keane Smithers.

Van Cooten attended Church Missionary Society Training College in London from 1847, also known as the Islington College or the Inslington Institution.

The Yoruba mission was founded in 1844 when Samuel Crowther, Mr. Gollmer, and Rev. Henry Townsend were travelling to Abeokuta. On their journey, they received news that the individual who would welcome them to the Abeokuta mission had passed. Thus the party stayed in Badagry, where they eventually established a mission. Mr. Gollmer remained with the Badagry mission.